thou shalt not slice thine spaghetti

This 2023 work on Slice sampler on manifolds, as presented in the algorithms seminar in Warwick during a recent visit of by Mareike Hasenpflug, consists in designing and validating slice samplers for distributions on manifolds. It is mildly connected to some current work on MCMC … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 day ago

connection between tempering & entropic mirror descent

The next One World ABC webinar is this Thursday, the 2nd May, at 9am UK time, with Francesca Crucinio (King’s College London, formerly CREST and even more formerly Warwick) presenting “A connection between Tempering and Entropic Mirror Descent”. a joint work with Nicolas Chopin a … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 2 days ago

travel woes

On my last trip to Warwick, the local (RER) train I boarded broke on its way to the CDG airport, after hitting something in a tunnel just three stops short of the airport, with so much delay and misleading communication that I missed my flight. While a minor issue for me, since I … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 3 days ago

fast and curious

A paper in Frontiers attempted modelling the optimization of world-class 400 m and 1,500 m running performances using high-resolution data. “In the present study, rather than using statistical analyses of 100-m split times or big data, we choose to analyze a select sample of Worl … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 4 days ago

good morning [from] Les Houches

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 5 days ago

mind the gap [jatp]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 6 days ago

air shame [cover]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 7 days ago

a journal of the conquest, war, [snow] famine, and death year

Read yet another novelette by Aliette de Bodard, The citadel of weeping pearls, set in the same universe of a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation, which proved somewhat equal to the previous ones, with the plus of digging into mother-daughter and sibling relations and the sli … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 8 days ago

d≥3 strikes again

Yesterday, Bálint Tóth (University of Bristol and Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics) came to Paris Dauphine for a seminar on the Botlzmann-Grad limit and the existence of a central (double) limit theory. Which was somewhat related with the above video of an earlier seminar, a … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 9 days ago

joint fiddlin

Flip a fair coin 100 times, resulting in a sequence of heads (H) and tails (T). For each HH in the sequence, Alice gets a point; for each HT, Bob does, so e.g. for the subsequence THHHT Alice gets 2 points and Bob gets 1 point. Who is most likely to win? An interesting conundrum … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 10 days ago

BAYSM registration now open!

The registration for BAYSM 2024 is now officially open. The Bayesian Young Statistician Meeting will take place in Ca’Foscari on 29 and 30 June, 2024, prior to the ISBA meeting. Early bird registration is available till 10 May and for a very low fee that includes lunches and a re … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 11 days ago

Mas Foulaquier

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 11 days ago

“the most intense famine since WW II”

About 677,000 Gazaouis, are in “catastrophic” conditions today and a further 41% are in “emergency” conditions. Half of Gazaouis, i.e., 1.1 million people, will be in “catastrophe” or “famine” within weeks. Acute food insecurity puts all children under five at high risk of severe … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 20 days ago

MCMC without evaluating the target [aatB-mMC joint seminar, 24 April]

On 24 April 2024, Guanyang Wang (Rutgers University, visiting ESSEC) will give a joint All about that Bayes – mostly Monte Carlo seminar on MCMC when you do not want to evaluate the target distribution In sampling tasks, it is common for target distributions to be known up to a n … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 21 days ago

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, death[s], and chaos year

Read John Scalzi’s Head On, which is set in the same future America as Lock In, involving again the Halden syndrome patients forced to live by remotely operating robots (threeps) and introducing an extreme form of American football adapted to these patients, since they cannot be … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 22 days ago

Warwickshire honey fungus [by Birmingham]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 23 days ago

Claire Voisin interviewed in Nature

Mathematics gets rarely featured in Nature, as this is not the most obvious outlet for mathematical discoveries, hence it is exceptional to see Claire Voisin interviewed in the 08 Feb issue, following her receiving the 2024 Crafoord Prize in Mathematics and Astronomy “for outstan … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 24 days ago

ubutabera ku bazize jenoside 1994

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 25 days ago

keep your [used] teabag & carry on

A report from The New York Times about a shortage of black tea in Britain, due to shipping delays, dues to container ships avoiding the Red Sea [not red tea!], due to Houthi attacks, themselves connected with the unjustified suffering Israel inflicts upon Gaza civilians, in a war … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 26 days ago

mostly MC [April]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 27 days ago

Jerome Spanier (1930-2024)

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 28 days ago

Mont Blanc [jatp]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 29 days ago

COPSS’gratulations!

Congrats to my friends Daniele, Regina, and Veronika, who received three of the 2024 COPSS awards! Looking forward to celebrate with them in the near future, at ISBA 2024 in Venezia or JSM 2024 in Portland!!! (COPSS stands for Committee of Presidents of [some] Statistical Societi … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

þe norse farce [re-explained]

As I was quizzed about the meaning of þe norse farce logo (on both my tee-shirt and my laptop) at a recent workshop (and as befits the day!), let me recall here it is a multilevel pun mostly centred at myself and neither at a famous outdoor brand or at Norsemen! It started with m … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

Bayes and the Fiddler

An ex se intellegitur from The Fiddler You are given an urn containing 100 balls. N of them are red, and 100−N green, where N is chosen uniformly at random between 0 and 100 (inclusive). You take a random ball out of the urn—it just so happens to be red—and discard it. Is the nex … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

borderline call to voters’ registration

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

[very] simple rejection Monte Carlo

“In recent years, the Rejection Monte Carlo (RMC) algorithm has emerged sporadically in literature under alternative names such as screening sampling or reject-accept sampling algorithms” First, I was intrigued enough by a new arXival spotted in the Thalys train from Brussels to … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

lecturing in Collège

A few weeks ago I gave a seminar on ABC (and its asymptotics) in the beautiful amphitheatre Marguerite de Navarre (a writer, a thinker, and a protector of writers like Rabelais and of reformist catholics, as well as th sister of the Collège founder, François I) of Collège de Fran … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

lauzes [art brut]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

the flawed genius of William Playfair [book review]

David Bellhouse has written a new book on the history of statistics, focussing on William Playfair this time (following his fantastic book on Abraham de Moivre). The Flawed Genius of William Playfair (The Story of the Father of Statistical Graphics) got published a few months ago … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

data protection [not from Les Houches]

While running a “kitchen” workshop on Bayesian privacy in Les Houches, Le Monde published on π day a recap of a recent report on AI commanded by the French Government. Among other things, it contains recommendations on alleviating the administrative blocks in accessing personal d … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

significant otters [cover]

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « support arXiv on Π data protection [not from Les Houches] » significant otters [cover] Share: Share Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

support arXiv on Π

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « my life as an obstetrician [spam] significant otters [cover] » support arXiv on Π Share: Share Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Ope … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

my life as an obstetrician [spam]

An hilarious invitation I received this day: 11th International Congress of Gynaecology and Obstetrics June 12-14, 2024 Budapest, Hungary Dear Christian P. Robert, On behalf of organizing committee, we are very honoured to invite you to participate in the 11th International Congr … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

Active Statistics: Stories, Games, Problems, and Hands-on Demonstrations [it’s out now!]

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year my life as an obstetrician [spam] » Active Statistics: Stories, Games, Problems, and Hands-on Demonstrations [it’s out now!] Share: Share Click to email a link to a fri … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year

Read novellas by Aliette de Bodard, The tea master and the detective, and Seven of infinities, which involved a “mindship” as a central character and mysteries attached with a second central character, set within a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation (still enjoying tea!). Ea … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

on the edge and online!

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « computing Bayes, with some approximations a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year » on the edge and online! Share: Share Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Ope … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

computing Bayes, with some approximations

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « oceanographers in Les Houches on the edge and online! » computing Bayes, with some approximations Share: Share Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Click to share … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

oceanographers in Les Houches

Þe first internal research workshop of our ERC Synergy project OCEAN is taking place in Les Houches, French Alps, this coming week with 15 researchers gathering for brain-storming on some of the themes at the core of the project, like algorithmic tools for multiple decision-makin … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

International Women’s Day 2024

Xi'an's Og an attempt at bloggin, nothing more… « postdoctoral research positions at PariSanté oceanographers in Les Houches » International Women’s Day 2024 Share: Share Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Clic … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 1 month ago

24 PhD fellowships in Mathematical Sciences partly in Paris

Twenty-four PhD fellowships (“International Doctoral Training in Mathematical Sciences in France – MathPhDInFrance” co-funded by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – HORIZON-MSCA-2022- COFUND) are available for the next academic year for a co-supervision between a laboratory in the G … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 3 months ago

sunrise boulevard, Aubrac [jatp]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 4 months ago

2023 Workshop in honour of Professors Donald Poskitt and Gael Martin

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 5 months ago

snap snap snap…

Every few weeks, I get a warning from Firefox (my default browser) that an update is not implemented. This is due to Ubuntu 22.0 adopting the snap technology for handling its packages and their updates. Supposedly helping with handling versions and dependences. This update can be … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 5 months ago

We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 5 months ago

Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine [not a book review]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 5 months ago

Arrowleaf Cellars [pinot noir]

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@xianblog.wordpress.com | 6 months ago

Arnak Dalalyan at the RSS Journal Webinar

My friend and CREST colleague Arnak Dalalyan will (re)present [online] a Read Paper at the RSS on 31 October with my friends Hani Doss and Alain Durmus as discussants: ‘Theoretical Guarantees for Approximate Sampling and Log-Concave Densities’ Arnak Dalalyan ENSAE Paris, France S … | Continue reading


@xianblog.wordpress.com | 6 months ago